When Tommy Rees was named Alabama’s offensive coordinator back in February, the LSU matchup got all the more interesting as he would be facing his old head coach at Notre Dame Brian Kelly.
Rees’ connection to Kelly even predated his tenure as the offensive play-caller for the Fighting Irish from 2020-22, as he was a quarterback under Kelly before joining his staff.
With the deep history between the two does the addition of Rees give Alabama an upper hand to what Kelly and the Tigers are game-planning for Saturday?
Nick Saban doesn’t really think so.
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Saban was during his weekly appearance on The Pat McAfee Show on Thursday if Rees’ familiarity with Kelly would give the Crimson Tide a competitive advantage where he explained his stance.
“I think probably a little more media fodder,” Saban said. ” because when you actually do the scouting reports and look at the film and do all the cut-ups – we’ve got probably 100 different cut-ups that we watch about things – they kind of get it what we’re doing, we kind of get it, what they’re doing, so if you had any inside information, it probably wouldn’t be much to add on to what you would learn through the course of your preparation.”
With both teams now being eight games into the season, there aren’t too many tricks to be hidden away thanks to a thorough scout job.
But could there be some extra motivation on Rees’ part to defeat his former head coach?
Possibly, but Saban hasn’t noticed any difference in his preparation or attitude towards this game than any previous and is confident in his skills leading into Saturday.
“I don’t think anything different,” Saban said on Wednesday. “Tommy works hard and tries to do the best he can to help our players to play well in the game. I don’t think in these kinds of games you want to sort of try to – I don’t know what you would call it – do a lot of new stuff because the players need to have confidence in what you’re doing, and they gain confidence in doing that through cumulative reps throughout the course of the season.
“And if you just make a bunch of changes, they start looking at you like, ‘Don’t you think we can execute what we’ve been doing?’ So I think you’ve got to be a little careful, but I don’t see that happening. I think he’s focused on trying to get our players in the right spots to do the right things that help them have a chance to be successful.”
Alabama will kickoff against LSU at 6:45 p.m. inside Bryant-Denny Stadium with CBS on the call.
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Patrick Dowd is a Reporter for Touchdown Alabama Magazine. You can follow him on Twitter, via Pat_Dowd77
